


Once Upon a (Shameless) December

by missingthe907



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Anastasia Fusion, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Gallavich, Gallavich AU, Inspired by Anastasia (1997), M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-29 17:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19024282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingthe907/pseuds/missingthe907
Summary: There’s a rumor in St. Petersburg, reward money for a missing Gallagher, and a boy with red hair and missing memory. Mikhailo Milkovich is ready to seize the opportunity to pull off the biggest scam he’s ever tried. He just has to get this stupid, stubborn, mysterious redhead named Ian to Paris in one piece.AKA the Gallavich Anastasia AU no one asked for(Will follow the movie loosely, in idea only, not scene for scene)Planning to add additional characters/tags as needed for future chapters





	1. Prologue

It was just bad luck and bad timing, really. A combination of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that would just be in line with the usual Gallagher luck, wouldn’t it?

Eight-year-old Ian hadn’t wanted to come on the trip to Russia anyways. His siblings were still all the way back in Ireland and here he was, with his stupid stuffy formal name in stupid stuffy suits, freezing his ass off and bored out of his mind.

His Uncle Clayton had officially claimed Ian as his son, in title and role, last year. He knew he looked more like Clayton than Frank, but they were surprised that Clayton had done anything about it. Frank had put some pieces together and confronted Monica when she made her way back into town, after being missing for several months (again), and she’d confessed. Now Ian had several new longer names to go with the fancy titles. Until then, he had just been Ian, son of the always drunken youngest son Frank Gallagher. Now he was Finnian Clayton Gallagher, only son of Clayton Gallagher, and subject to all sorts of new rules and responsibilities that came with. He hated it. 

This trip was the longest he’d been away from his real family, his siblings. Fiona, who despite her young age was the closet Ian knew to a loving mother. Lip, his older brother, his best friend. Debbie and Carl, the babies. 

But Clayton had to leave. Diplomacy, or something like that. Ian didn’t really care. Clayton’s extensive schooling and fluency in Russian made him a good choice for the trip, so off they went. Ian’s tutor Matthew had tried to make good use of the long voyage by boat and train to teach Ian the language. Ian had grasped the basics, but the basics hardly made for lots of fun conversations.

He played nice, for the most part. He sat patiently for a family portrait, presumably to be sent back on the home voyage. He didn’t cause unnecessary trouble, even though he was bored. Mostly, he just spent his time sulking. He told people to stop calling him Finnian; half the time he forgot they meant him. But they didn’t want to be “improper” so they ignored his requests. Propriety, what a dull concept. 

From his spot by the wall, Ian watched partygoers dance, the moves and routines ones that he didn’t know. Ian actually did like parties and balls like this. He and his siblings loved the music, the colors, the food. Here, he didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the dances, and didn’t like the unfamiliar music. He mostly lingered on the edges, occasionally wandering over to a table with food, to stuff another chocolate or cake in his mouth. 

Ian noticed a boy with black hair and pale skin peaking out from behind a curtain, near the food. He seemed close to Ian’s age, or maybe closer to Lip. He was clearly trying not to be noticed, but once Ian saw him, he couldn’t look away. The boy was dirty, with dark smudges on his face. He wore simple clothes, dark pants and a beige shirt, typical of servants that lurked in the shadows. Those that stayed out of sight out of mind in the palace, cleaning and keeping things running.  

The boy’s bright blue eyes scanned the surroundings once more. Apparently deciding he was in the clear, he darted out, scooped up three cakes, and disappeared once more behind the curtain. 

Intrigued, Ian did something he could admit, was probably not his best idea. He followed. 

Tucking himself past the heavy drapery, he discovered a narrow passage, an easy way for people to move throughout the castle unseen. About ten steps ahead, a lantern on the ground was the only source of light. The boy stood next to it. He looked up quickly, his face mean. The effect was somewhat diminished by the chipmunk effect of his cheeks, stuffed full of food. Ian tried not to laugh, not wanting to offend him. 

“What?” The boy snapped out, crumbs flying from his full mouth. Ian decided he already liked him more than the boring party guests. 

“Hi, I’m Ian,” he said. 

“I didn’t do nothin’.” The boy’s voice was clearer now, swallowing the cakes down. He shifted his stance to seem more aggressive, his voice more threatening. “You didn’t see anything, got it?” 

Ian smiled. “See what?” 

The boy kept his shoulders tense, uncertain, but his arms settled slightly, hanging down. “Ian, huh?” He said. “Weird name.” 

“What’s yours?”

“None of your business. Fuck’s with the accent?” 

“Accent?” 

“Yeah.” The boy’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “What, like you don’t notice it?” 

Ian shrugged his shoulders. Truth be told, he didn’t really know the language well enough yet to hear the differences clearly. 

“Well I’m still learning,” he said. “My brother Lip is really smart, he probably would know it all already, but sometimes he can really be…” 

“Stop,” the boy held his hand up to interrupt Ian’s rambling. He paused for a moment, tilting his head. “Hear that?” He asked. 

Ian tried to take more notice of his surroundings, listening like he was told, but he didn’t hear anything. “No,” he said. 

“Exactly,” said the boy. 

It only then hit Ian that it was too quiet. The two of them had only stepped behind a heavy curtain, which had muffled the noise, but not stopped it. Now, it was silent. No music, no chatter, no obnoxious fake laughs, no shuffling of feet. Nothing. 

The silence broke when the screaming started. The two boys heard the chaos of people running and yelling. Ian moved to step towards the curtain as if on instinct, but the boy grabbed his arm. 

“Wait,” he said. His voice was firm, but his face betrayed him. He was scared too. “This way.” He grabbed the lantern with his other hand and ran down the corridor, dragging Ian along. Ian didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know if following was smart, but he went willingly.  

They exited the passage by stepping around a different curtain, entering what looked like a bedroom. Several beds lined the wall, small chests at the end of each one, and a window let in moonlight. The boy walked up to the window and peered at the scene below. 

“Holy fuck.” 

“What?” asked Ian. “What’s out there? What’s happening?” He stepped up to the window now too, watching the large grounds surrounding the palace fill with people. An angry mob, as far as Ian could tell, and it seemed to be swarming them.  

The boy glanced at Ian and seemed to make some sort of decision, giving a short nod to himself. He ran to open one of the chests, rifling through it quickly. 

“Take that off,” he said, gesturing at Ian’s formal military styled coat. He found what he was looking for, and threw the plain baggy white shirt at Ian. 

“Why?” Asked Ian, even as he started to undo the polished buttons. 

“They look like they’re gonna be friendly? Just do it. Fucking blend or whatever.” 

As Ian pulled the new shirt over his head, he wondered if it belonged to the boy in front of him, if this was where he slept. He took another look around at the sparse room, curious, but trying not to be nosey.  

“We got to get out of here,” the boy said. Ian held onto the fact that he’d said “we.” He wasn’t sure why he was being included, but it wasn’t like he was going to argue. The boy grabbed a coat out of the chest and threw it on. “I know more than one way out,” he said. 

Then he was moving, headed towards the door. Ian followed quickly. They left the lantern behind and ran down dark hallways.  

None of these places looked familiar to Ian. He had no idea where they were. Occasionally, they’d hear shouts or fighting coming from different directions. They kept moving, sometimes the boy seeming to quickly change course. 

Ian had never felt so scared in his life. He wondered where Clayton was, or his tutor Matthew, or anyone else that made up their small group from home. He wanted to find them, or them to find him. He wanted everything to be boring again. But most of all, now more than ever, he wanted to go home. 

The boy slowed his pace quickly, Ian bumping into him. A light grew brighter and brighter at the end of the hall, and the sound of footsteps meant people were behind them. The boy grabbed Ian’s arm again, this time pulling him into a closet, and closed the door. Ian opened his mouth, but the boy’s hand was quick to cover it before Ian could get a word out. The boy glared at him with one eyebrow raised, clearly telling him to shut up. Ian nodded, and the hand pulled back. 

They waited, chests rising and falling as they tried to quiet their breathing, heaving from fear and running. Once it sounded like everyone had moved on, the boy waited another minute. He inched the door open, only a sliver, and peeked out. Then he and Ian crept out slowly, trying to keep their footsteps light. A loud “Hey!” at the end of the hall was more than enough for them to take off running again.  

The boy came to a sudden stop in front of a high window with a latch and hinges on it. The boy reached up and undid the latch, the window swinging open outwards. Ian reached and tried to pull himself up, but it was too high.  

“Here,” the boy said, creating a step with his hands by lacing his fingers together. 

“What about you?” asked Ian.  

“Like I said, there’s more than one way out, now hurry the fuck up!” 

Not asking anymore questions, Ian put his foot in the boy’s hands and hauled himself up to the window’s ledge. The other side had a slightly further drop, but not too far. He jumped down, landing in snow. When he turned back, he could no longer see through the window.  

“Now what?” He said, hoping the boy could hear him, not wanting to shout. 

“Meet up at the cemetery. It’s not far, you’ll find it, but it’s far enough. Look for Mina Milkovich’s headstone. That’s where I’ll be at. Now go, you idiot!” 

Ian tried to commit the name to memory. He had barely seen anything outside the palace since they’d arrived. He had no idea where anything was. How was he going to find the cemetery? He realized he still didn’t even know the boy’s name.  

“Hey!” he called over the window. “You never told me your name!” He received no reply. The boy had already left to find his own way out.  

Looking around, in front of Ian was an open field with patches of snow, people running one way or another. The majority of the crowd was closer to the doors still. Beyond the grounds was a tall fence. Ian didn’t like the idea of having to climb it, but he didn’t see any other choice. He took off running, making it to the fence without anyone stopping him. In the plain shirt from the boy and not lingering in anywhere of importance, no one paid him much attention. 

Ian jumped and pulled himself up on the fence, starting to climb. When reached the top, he couldn’t help but pause. He looked back out at the chaos, the fires, the violence. The loud sound of gunshots startled him and caused his foot to slip. He gasped, reaching out and trying to regain his hold on the fence, but it was too late. He tumbled to the ground. The snow softened the fall, but his head hit hard, knocking him into unconsciousness. People ignored the boy in the snow, moving past without thought. All around him, the world continued going mad.

 

In a cemetery down the road, a boy with dark hair and blue eyes waited, leaning against his mother’s headstone. He wasn’t sure why he waited, why bother. But he waited, watching the sun rise high into the sky. No one ever showed.

 


	2. Mickey and Mandy Milkovich

“Mickey! Mickey, wake up!”

Mikhailo Milkovich kept his eyes firmly closed, his face half pressed into the pillow, and frowned, trying not the groan. The sound of his sister’s voice was not a welcome one. She sounded excited, which meant he wasn’t likely to get any more sleep. Was it too much to ask that he not be woken up at the ass crack of dawn after forging papers all night?

“I know you’re not still asleep, asshole,” Mandy said. “Your eyebrow’s doing that weird twitchy thing.” Mickey could hear that she was closer, but stayed resolute in his aim to ignore her. That goal failed when Mandy started smacking her older brother in the face with a rolled up newspaper. 

“Fuck,” Mickey groaned. He pushed the paper away. “Fuckin’ knock it off, bitch.” Mickey loved his little sister, but that didn’t mean he always liked her.

 

Since there were little, it was the two of them against the world. Their mother died when Mickey was eight and Mandy was six. Things were never exactly easy before that, but after, it got worse. Their father had gone from gruff and mean to hateful and destructive. Terry Milkovich had never been a kind man, but it seemed that any lingering kindness he had died with his wife.

Neglected, starving, and abused, Mickey did whatever he had to do. He crept around his father, terrified of the man, but the more pressing issues of not dying and keeping Mandy from starving made him braver. He became a decent pick-pocket. When he did fuckup, he was a scrappy fighter. Mickey didn’t hesitate to punch a guy in the nuts and run.

Such an incident led him to meet Kevin, a young man in his early twenties at the time. Kevin noticed the boy and tried to grab for his pocket book back. Mickey went for his usual move of throwing punches, but embarrassingly, the guy just picked him up and held him out in front of him. How fucking tall was this asshole, seven feet?

“Easy, easy!” Kevin said, laughing slightly at the boy’s antics. It shouldn’t have been funny, but something about the whole thing apparently amused him. “No kicking me in the balls, alright hot shot?”

“Fuck off!” yelled Mickey, twisting and squirming to get away. “Let me go, dickbreath!” 

“You gonna give it back?” Kev asked, referring to the pocketbook still tightly clutched in Mickey’s grubby hand. 

“Fuck you,” said Mickey. He made a noise in the back of his throat, hocking up spit. Kevin let go before he could get hit in the eye.

“Gross, kid,” he said. “Why don’t you just open the damn thing, you won’t find anything worth taking.”

Mickey was only stunned by his new freedom for a moment before he took off running.

“For fuck’s sake,” Kev said, taking off after him. Mickey was a quick kid, but Kevin’s long legs helped him catch up. He snatched the pocket book out of Mickey’s hand, holding it up high and out of reach. Mickey growled in response, but Kevin only rolled his eyes.

“Would you just look?” He asked, somehow still sounding amused and annoyed. He opened the small, foldable booklet and handed it back.

Suspicious, Mickey inspected the contents. They were not, disappointingly, anything spendable. All he saw was several folded up pieces of paper, folded tightly but neatly. Mickey pulled one out to figure out what it was. His reading ability was practically non-existent, but even he knew he wouldn’t understand any of this. It wasn’t even written in the right alphabet. 

“The fuck’s this?” He asked.

“Love letters,” said Kev, now looking a little smug. The boy held the offending papers out as if he could catch something from them, making a face. Kevin laughed and continued. “My girl Vee lives in Paris. We’re planning to move her here in a few years, I hope, distance sucks. For now, I’ve got these. So they’re pretty important to me, but obviously pretty useless to you. So I’d appreciate if I could just hold onto them.”

Mickey examined the man in front of him more thoroughly. He thought he’d picked a good mark. The man was well dressed, his ponytail and beard well groomed. He looked the type who didn’t have enough street sense to notice something was missing until it was too late, but clearly Mickey had been wrong about that.

“What’s your deal kid?” Kev asked. “Runaway? Orphan? Or just poor as fuck like everyone else around here?”

Mickey shrugged. “Fuck’s it to you?”

Kevin carefully tucked the pocket book of letters back into his coat. “Call it passing the torch, or a favor, a feeling. I don’t know. I just got a good feeling about you, kid.”

Mickey knew about kids who disappeared because of strange men with strange promises. He wasn’t looking to become one. He took a few steps back, widening the distance between them, even if Kevin had just proved he could outrun Mickey.

“Right,” Kevin said. He reached back to tighten his ponytail. “I’m probably being really weird right now. I promise I’m not like, a perv or anything.” He stuck his hand out for a shake, even though he figured he’d be left hanging. “Name’s Kevin Ball. Anything alcohol for the royals, that’s all me. I manage their stores at the palace. Need a good drink, I’m your guy. Course, you look a bit young yet, probably be on the ground passed out after just one.”

“Get to the fucking point,” said Mickey. “What do you want?”

“I’m offering you a job, kid,” said Kevin. “Look, I didn’t actually get born living large and fancy. I ran around these streets, picking pockets, doing stupid shit. There wasn’t anyone I could fall back on, so wasn’t a lot of options. Then one day this guy named Sal took me under his wing. He had a son of his own, but that fucker’s pretty useless honestly. Sal gave me something to do, a place to sleep, food I could rely on. Crazy fucker, pretty much lost all his marbles before he kicked the bucket, but he was family. Figure maybe this is some kind of sign. The universe repeating itself, telling me it’s my turn now.”

Mickey’s eyebrows spoke before he did, raised high. “You crazy or somethin? That’s fucking stupid.”

“Whatever, you want a job or not?”

So at nine years old, Mickey started work in the palace under Kevin’s supervision. He ran different bottles and glasses around the palace, learning the routes so he could move quickly from one side to the other. He moved boxes, unloaded crates. When Kevin found out he wasn’t bad with numbers, he had him start tracking the inventory. Mickey acted like it annoyed him, but he was secretly pleased. He was proud of the step up. 

Kevin made it clear that stealing shit didn’t fly here, but old habits die hard. What didn’t know would hurt him. Mostly, Mickey stole more food, making sure there was enough for Mandy. He snuck his little sister into the palace to stay with him in secret. Mickey had become very familiar with the different passages and rooms, including secret halls, making it easier to hide Mandy. But Kevin found out anyway. 

Kevin didn’t have a job he could assign to a seven-year-old girl, but he wasn’t heartless. He took her to the orphanage, promising Mickey he’d check in to make sure everything stayed safe there, and Mickey could visit as much as he wanted if he had the time.

Of course, when everything seemed pretty stable for the Milkovich kids, it all quickly went to shit. Always ready to run, despite his recent good luck, Mickey had kept anything he wouldn’t want to leave behind hidden in his coat. When he ran from the palace the night of the revolution he made no plans to even attempt to go back.

He found Mandy at the orphanage. He wanted them to stick together, and he still didn’t trust the place. That night they ran. They squatted in abandoned buildings, relying on each other, huddled together to conserve heat. Neither of them ever suggested or considered finding Terry. Even if he hadn’t been a terrible piece of shit father, they both knew they closed that door for good when they’d left.

Mickey found one of Kevin’s liquor distributors, one he knew to be a generally disreputable guy. This made him the perfect guy if you were looking for work even if the work was shady. Mickey and Mandy worked for him for a while, stealing, scamming, and learning the tools of the trade along the way. They ran into Kevin again on a job of all places. They were thankful to discover he wasn’t dead, but Kevin had been somewhat miserable. Everything he’d been hoping for was gone. He left St. Petersburg, but if they needed to, the Milkoviches knew how to contact and find him.

By the time Mickey turned twenty, he and Mandy weren’t half bad at the whole swindling to scape by gig. They never made much, but they had two beds, a small place of their own, and managed to mostly fly under the radar. Which, considering how prone to violence they could both be if they felt the situation called for it, was saying something. 

 

So yeah, Mickey had been through a lot with his sister. He’d worked and fought just to get to this point. So it seemed downright disrespectful to get a newspaper in the face for it. No goddamn manners. 

“The fuck you want,” Mickey asked as he sat up in bed. Mandy held the top of a newspaper and let the rest drop down. She held the front page right in her brother’s face.

“Haven’t you heard?” Mandy said. “I mean, everyone’s been buzzing like it’s fucking Christmas lately.”

Mickey grabbed the dumb thing to examine the cover story. This wasn’t a newspaper really, just some stupid gossip tabloid people snuck around that Mandy liked. The young face of Finnian Gallagher, age eight, looked back at him. Giant letters across the top read: LOST PRINCE STILL ALIVE? BODY NEVER FOUND!

Mickey sighed, annoyed. “Mandy, why do you even read this shit? I mean he wan’t even a prince, just the son of some Irish diplomat or some shit. If you’re gonna read gossip, you can’t even read good stuff?”

Mandy rolled her eyes. “Oh yee of little faith. Read on just a bit, would you?”

“Just tell me you didn’t pay actual money for this garbage.”

“Do I ever? Read.”

Figuring Mandy wouldn’t leave him alone until he did, Mickey skimmed the page. Among the speculation that the real Finnian was alive and well, the story mentioned his half-sister Fiona. It said she held out hope that her brother was still alive, out there somewhere.

“Okay, I read it,” Mickey handed the paper back. “What’s your point? Where’s the fire?”

“Well I also happened to hear,” said Mandy, “that his sister recently got married. To someone with even way more money than the Gallagher family. Can you imagine? I mean, she’d probably pay through the nose to get her lost brother back, don’t you think?”

Mickey followed his sister’s line of thinking, honestly a little impressed. He might have thought of it himself sooner if he paid closer attention to gossip lately.

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“I don’t know. Are you thinking we find someone convincing enough, trick the sister, and end up rich as fuck?”

“Well obviously,” said Mickey. “But that’d have to be, like, the biggest fucking con in history.”

“Well if you’re not up to it…”

“Bitch would you give me like five seconds to fucking process first? Jesus.” The more Mickey thought about it, the more he liked it. A chance for them to make a real go of it, somewhere it wasn’t always freezing, and he wouldn’t have to lie and steal and worry about his little sister. A new life.

“We should loop in Kev,” he said, already starting a plan. “He had all that time in the palace, he’d know the background and formalities and all that shit. If he’s good for it, we can pick him up on the way.”

“You know we’ll have to cut him in on the score then, right?” Mandy said. 

“Oh I’m sorry, did you miss the part where I said biggest con in history?” said Mickey. “We do this, we do this right.”

Mandy sighed. She bit her lip, glancing at the face printed on the page she held in her hand. Mickey knew that despite the fact this was her idea, Mandy was a romantic, a dreamer. A part of her probably hoped that the real Finnian really was still out there somewhere, that the rumors were true. Mickey held no such illusions. The lost “prince” wasn’t going to show up out of nowhere and cause them trouble, and that was what Mickey cared about. The kid was long dead. He thought of the confused redhead he’d dragged through a palace. He probably died that same night, along with the rest of the delegation, just one more casualty. Anyone still in denial about that was a sucker, and a sucker was an easy mark. 

Mandy shook her head, clearing out any daydreams. She looked back at Mickey. 

“So, we doing this?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey. “We’re doing this.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly wasn't really planning on quite so much here before moving on, didn't think it would be a whole chapter, but I'm going with it.   
> Next chapter we'll be back to Ian!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic on AO3, so this is a bit new (though I've read many!). Going for something that I don't want to be too serious, just for fun.  
> Like stated in the summary, I'll probably veer off from the movie more, not go scene for scene.  
> Let me know in the comments what you think! Thanks for reading!


End file.
